Fish-plate



H. F. COX.

FISH-PLATE.

Patented Nov. 8, 1887.

(No Model.)

NVENTOR 7 7% WITNESSES E UNITED STATES ATENT QFFICEO HENRY F. COX, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

FISH-PLATE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 372,659, dated November 8, 1887.

Application filed July 1, 1887.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY F. Cox, of the city and county of Philadelphia, State of Penn sylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Fish-Plates, of which the following is a true and exact description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this specification.

My invention relates to the construction of fish-plates for uniting the abutting ends of railway-rails, and has for its object to so construct such fish-plates that they will require less metal than has heretofore been the case without robbing them of strength; and my in vention consists in so constructing the fishplates that they will project farther on one side of the joint which they unite than they do upon the other side, in the manner and for the purpose hereinafter described.

Reference being now had to the drawings, which illustrate my invention, Figure l is a plan view of a railjoint provided with my improved fish-plates or splices; Fig. 2, a plan View of the same, and Fig. 3 a cross section of one of the fish-plates.

A A are the rails; 13 B, the ties; O O, the fish-plates, which are in section of the kind known as double-angle fish-plates, one flange, c, fitting between the head and base of the rail, and the other flange, 0, extending out over the base of the rail and slightly beyond it, so as to be engaged by the spi kesJ and K, which secure the rails in line upon the tics B.

F and F are the bolt-holes in the fish-plates, through which the bolts D pass to clamp the said iishplatcs to the rails.

It is found, in practice, that the fislrplates should be spiked to the two ties which lie on each side of the rail-joint; and it is, as is well known, important that the spikes on each side of the rail should not lie in or near the same transverse line.

As heretofore constructed, the fish-plates have been prolonged on both sides of the rail to the same distance from the center, and they have both been prolonged so that their ends would overlap the ties in order to be in position to have the spikes secured upon them, the length of these fish-plates being greater thanis required for the proper strengthening of the splices, and their extreme ends serving practically no other useful purpose than to engage with the spikes. I obtain all the useful featu res of thisold style of fish-plate by piercing plates of shorter length with bolt holes F F, arranged nearer to one end of the plate than to the otherthat is, the bolt holes F, upon one side of my fish-plate, are closer to the end H than are the bolt-holes F to the end G, this last end only being, when in position, prolonged to the same distance from the center of the joint that was heretofore the case with both ends, and the end H being only so much extended beyond the nearest bolthole, F, as is necessary to give the proper strength to the metal to hold the bolt. The amount of metal saved by this mode of construction will be at once apparent from a glance at the drawings; and, as will at once be seen, the fish-plates are secured in exactly the same way and exactly as well as has heretofore been the casethe bolts J, farthest from the centerof the splices, engaging with the prolonged ends G of the splices, and the bolts K, nearest to the center of the splices, having plenty of holding space upon the short ends of the fish-plates. Of course all fish-plates will be made of the same pattern, and, as they are turned so as to face each other on the two sides of the rails, their long ends will project in difi'erent directions.

Having now described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

As a new article of manufacture, doubleangle fislrplates pierced with bolt-holes arranged at unequal distances from their ends, substantially as and for the purpose shown and described.

HENRY F. COX.

XVit-ncsses:

FRANK A. MULLIKIN, JOSHUA llIATLAOK, Jr. 

